Page 91 - Volume 3 - Walks In The Black Range

27. Noonday Canyon Contributed by Devon Fletcher
There's access to this hike off of NM 152 a little less than 1.5 miles west of the now closed Lower Gallinas Campground. A rough road on the north side will take you down to the parking for the Rabb Park Trail (FT 747). If you don’t have high clearance (and maybe 4 wheel drive) you might want to park across the road at either the FT 795 trailhead or a pull-out a short ways to the west. I've hiked upstream from this point along Noonday Canyon three times before. Once we hiked on the old road to the older cabin after deeming it too hot to conquer the Rabb Park Trail. A second time, on a cloudy and cool day, we did make the climb over into Rabb Park. In fall 2017, we hiked in the stream bed past the cabin for a couple of miles or so.
October 2018 found me out there again, this time with a plan to hike downstream into Noonday's box section. It had been raining all week, but Saturday was supposed to mercifully precipitation free. I had my doubts though. It was cloudy, windy and much cooler than I expected as I started out.
The first part of this hike was walking west down the old road which is sometimes directly in a tributary stream. Just before crossing Noonday Creek I turned down another road to my left and headed southwest.
The walking now was in a fairly wide little valley that’s been beaten down a bit with grazing, wet years and drought, for a long time. A few colorful oaks were mixed in with the pines and junipers along the banks.
The stream was wet, but silent with an imperceptible flow in the shallow pools. It narrowed to wet crossings in a few rocky spots. At times I would just walk right along the stream, but at others I followed the cow path along shadier banks.
The road along the stream had disappeared shortly after the turn, but further down, another road came in from the south where there was a meadow that has been used for camping (although by the looks of the fire rings, not too recently). At the confluence with Rabb Canyon, the valley widens considerably. Rabb Canyon had tall grass and a very small flow as well. I was headed downstream into Noonday's little box which starts immediately after the two streams join.
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A Walk Along The Stream Bed
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